general character, and there is a certain advantage in the opportunities they afford of wider social fellowship, but the professional training they impart can never compare with that of a military college. It is admitted by the advocates of the project that a military college must be kept up, if only as an educational standard, but it could not retain a pre-eminence except by peculiar privileges. Sandhurst keeps its place, because it is the path to a commission without purchase. Give the same privilege to the universities, and they would beat it from the field. What chance, then, would it stand when the competition was thrown open to every public school, which SIR CORNEWALL LEWIS pointed out as the inevitable consequence of the proposed change? It is claimed for Dublin that it can provide as effective military training as Sandhurst, as it is a garrison town, and Oxford and Cambridge are said to have their volunteer adjutants and drill-sergeants, who place them in a position almost analogous. We answer that a knowledge of drill is only an element of the professional training of an officer. What is of at least equal importance is personal familiarity with discipline. The future officer must be habituated to obedience, and accustomed to restraints, such as can only be enforced at a military school. They who obtain their first commission without purchase must be the class to which we look for working officers. They should, therefore, before entering the army, receive the utmost initiation it is possible to impart. Their education should bring them to live under military regulations, to practice military duties, and to breathe a military atmosphere. Such results could never be obtained at any of the universities by the cunningest devices of volunteer adjutants and drill- sergeants, or even the facilities afforded by a garrison. On the other hand, they are all provided for at Sandhurst. The passed Cadet enters the army a readymade officer. It is such institutions that gave the profession of arms NAPOLEON and WELLINGTON; and we have been doing all in our power to make Sandhurst an effective school for officers both for the line and the staff. Whether the object will be as fully

obtained by rendering it self-supporting is open to doubt. The presence of students with the command of money where the majority, or a large portion, rest on limited means, can hardly be expected to improve discipline. Those expensive habits which are the ruin of so many young officers, may here be formed before entering the army, leaving an indelible impression. We are aware that they are prohibited by the letter of the rules, but are they forbidden in practice? Have they no existence? We should wish to see it a part of the system at Sandhurst not only to forbid-not only to discourage personal extravagance, but to make it felt as a reproach. There is no quality more becoming in a soldier than frugality, and it is not too much to ask that it should be inculcated by education. No one looks for the abstinence of the Spartan, but the Roman youth learnt self-denial without trenching on absurdity, and we hope the young millionaires who are now to flock into Sandhurst will be brought under as wholesome a discipline.

There seems to be some misapprehension respecting the position held by Sir EDWARD LUGARD in the War Department. The remarks on the subject in our last number, from a pen not often at fault, have elicited the facts, which come to us from a quarter too well informed to be open to question. It is true, as stated by us, that the salary of Sir EDWARD LUGARD is about to be increased, while his office has been made permanent; and it is also true that a new post was not long since created by the appointment of a précis-writer with a salary of £1000 a year. The writer of the article, an uncompromising military reformer, so far had ground for the impression he conceived from the comments in military circles, as it is not more our function to seek to form opinion than to express what exists. But our influence would deserve to be very circumscribed if we hesitated to correct a statement which more complete information proves to rest on erroneous conclusions. The friendly communication we have received places the matter in a totally different light, and after comparing it with the estimates,

we are enabled to say that the arrangements relating to Sir EDWARD LUGARD are decidedly to the public advantage. Sir EDWARD LUGARD had been appointed to the lucrative government of the Cape of Good Hope, when he was offered the post vacated in the War Department by Sir HENRY STORKS, at the reduced salary of £1200 a year, and this he accepted. The office was elevated into that of Under Secretary of State, and rendered permanent, on the recommendation of the Committee on Military Organization; and though it now raises Sir EDWARD LUGARD to £1500 a year, it is connected with arrangements which impose additional duties, arrising out of the abolition of the appointment of Superintendant of Pensioners, held by Sir ALEXANDER TULLOCH, and which will effect a clear saving of £600 a year. This is, indeed, more than set off in the balance sheet of the department, by the salary of £1000 a year to the précis-writer; but the latter renders no assistance to the new Under-Secretary; being employed in another branch of the department; and no one will assert that the hard work exacted of Sir EDWARD LUGARD is highly remunerated.

Something has been said of the gallant General's services in the field, as if they were not of a very high character. We shall only observe that he took part in most of the memorable actions of our India wars during the last quarter of a century, and bears their impress in honourable scars. The incidents of the campaign in which he commanded during the rebellion, were chronicled in this journal at the time, by one who shared its dangers; and it may be boldly averred that our pages contain no brighter record. We have not waited until now to deliver this opinion. On Sir EDWARD LUGARD's arrival in England from India, when he was known here only by report, we called attention to his career, and gave him a kindly welcome. We were the first to announce and to approve his appointment to the War Department, and we have no reason to alter the views we expressed; for every one admits that the duties of the post were never more ably discharged.

U. S. MAG., No. 401, APRIL, 1862.

P P

A recent ebullition of insubordination in the 2nd. Life Guards is likely to lead to important results. The Commander-in-Chief has instituted an inquiry into the circumstances, and into the general condition of the regiment, which rumour asserts to be far from perfect. We shall not prejudge the case by any expression of opinion, particularly in reference to the Commanding Officer; for a regiment so short of officers could hardly be in an efficient state, and cannot lay all its sins at one door. But the inquiry will bring this out, with some other things; and, we trust, will place the corps in a position to retrieve its good name, and all its old laurels.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

THE LIFE OF ARTHUR, FIRST DUKE OF WELLINGTON. By the Rev. G. R, Gleig, Chaplain-General to the Forces and Prebendary of St. Paul's. We should be giving a very false notisn of this important volume if we described it as a mere abridgment of the work of M. Brialmont which Mr. Gleig gave us in an English dress, with valuable additions of his own, and which we made the subject of several articles at the time of its publication. We have here literally a new work which is wholly the production of the Chaplain-General. The account of the military achievements are, indeed, based on the usually accurate record of Brialmont; but they are elucidated by great research, and treated in a more comprehensive spirit. The author has aimed to make them lessons in the art of war, as well as a clear and succinct history, and his criticisms show how well he remembers those glorious fields, in which he bore an honourable part. This portion of the work is the more valuable from being brought within readable limits and written from personal knowledge, aided by all the light attainable from official sources and the Duke's papers. The same character pervades the account of his civil career and his private life. Mr. Gleig for many years enjoyed the Duke's friendship and confidence, and thus came to see him in all situations, and to learn how he adorned all. He gives us traits and anecdotes of that intercourse which are very suggestive, and have never before been mentioned, while he has ransacked all the published sources of informa tion, and drawn from them the secrets of the courts and congresses at which the Duke represented England. The character of the great captain comes out brightly in these transactions as in all the acts of his life, and though we cannot say it takes a new aspect, we are made to comprehend its harmony and consistency. Mr. Gleig's chief object is to present such a life as will be at once popular and accessible, and in this he has fully succeeded. The maps and plans are good.

THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN. By Scrutator, 3 vols.

Scrutator has come to share the field held long undisputed by Mr. Surtees. It is one of great breadth if we take its whole range, for though there is a limit to its incidents, there is none to its variety of character and grades. Country society takes in a wide class, and the usages of country life may always be presented with an air of freshness, if not novelty. They are familiar things to Scrutator,' and no one more fully appreciates a meet or a hunt, or could describe them with more heartiness. He knows every cry of the hounds, and every trick of the fox, with all the little details that enliven the scene. We suspect that he is gathering materials for a story in the midst of it, when others are thinking only of the sport or themselves. There is a touch about his descriptions that give this impression, and we are taken by their vraisemblance while we are carried on by their vivacity. His fund of humour is not large, but it is peculiar, though it will rather provoke a smile than a laugh. The best part of this novel is its story, which is showing the author's strength in the right point; for, however clever or animated, a novel cannot be good as such if the story is weak. The interest centres on Lady Agnes and Edith: the former being touched with human infirmity, and the latter a little too perfect. Agnes is engaged to Lionel, when she comes in contact with Sir Digby Colville, and they are mutually attracted, the lady by Sir Digby's manners, and Sir Digby by the lady's money. The engagement with Lionel is broken off, and Agnes prepares to elope with her new lover, as the attachment is discountenanced by her family, but she is intercepted, and finally marries him with her father's consent. He carries her to a secluded part of France, where she is immured in a lonely house; and here he takes an opportunity to steal away, leaving her in charge of some servants, who soon prove to be her keepers. At last, she contrives to send a letter to Lionel, who had, meanwhile, married Edith, being under the impression that Agnes was dead, as Sir Digby had brought over a coffin, which he said contained her body, and it had been interred in the family vault. We shall not pursue the story to its end, though this will certainly be done by any one who takes it up, as it increases in interest in every page.

PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A FAST YOUNG LADY.

By Mrs. Grey, 3 vols.

The fast young ladies are rather going to the wall. They keep their ground in America, and in Paris, but make no way here, beyond exciting a little admiration, and getting up a little stir. Most young ladies are inclined to be fast at first, but are restrained by a want of confidence, which has all the effect of real modesty. They criticise their smarter sister, but envy while they condemn, wishing they could carry on in the same style; but they may learn for their comfort that the fast young lady, though she attracts, does not succeed, as, however numerous her admirers, she rarely obtains a husband. The one whose history is here related, is, indeed, more successful. She has no lack of suitors, attracted as much by her blandishments as by her beauty, and fascinated by her dash, but she has the inconstancy characteristic of her genus, and jilts them all, one after the other. She holds steadiest to Captain Lawless, but cannot resist the temptation to flirt with Lord Glendinnon, a married man, living apart from his wife; hence arises a coolness, which leads to a rupture. Mrs. Grey excels in delineating incidents of this kind, bringing out the feelings of her own sex under trial, and showing their effect in men. Caroline Eversfield is just the description of character in which she can display her power, and in which she can pourtray these emotions. The frivolous daughter of fashion without a heart, with no